


You Brought the Laughter Back

by august_anon



Series: Connected HS AU [2]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: (briefly) - Freeform, (once again briefly), Communication, Consensual tickling, Healthy Relationships, Lee!Roman, Ler!Virgil, M/M, Teasing, Tickling, lee!virgil, ler!roman, tickle teasing, ticklish!roman, ticklish!virgil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-26 02:45:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19758988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/august_anon/pseuds/august_anon
Summary: Virgil may not have the experience Roman has, but his fingers definitely work magic, if Roman's reactions are anything to go by.Rated T for swearing(This is a tickle fic)





	You Brought the Laughter Back

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, somehow I talked myself into writing a sequel so here. Fun fact: one of my cats started eating my notebook in the middle of writing this.

Virgil didn’t pounce right away. He took his time building up the anticipation.

Hand lingering slightly too long on Roman’s sides, fingers tracing shapes on his shoulders and upper arms yet never going far enough to tickle his neck, predatory smiles meeting Roman’s suspicious and nervous looks.

He had to admit, it was kind of fun. Usually Roman was the one flustering him. Oh, how the turn tables.

Virgil finally struck one afternoon while her and Roman were lounging around Roman’s house. Roman’s parents were nowhere to be found (not that that was unusual, with all their random business trips), and Remy was out doing who knows what, so the house was blissfully quiet and all their own.

They were simply laying in Roman’s bed, twined together, the blankets kicked off toward the end of the bed as their body heat was currently warmth enough.

Virgil rolled up the sleeves of his hoodie and pushed himself up onto his arms so he loomed over Roman.

“So,” he started, that smirk working its way back onto his face. “Patton let loose some _very_ valuable information the other day.”

“That he did,” Roman replied hesitantly.

Virgil suddenly turned very serious at Roman’s reaction. “If you don’t want me to do this I absolutely will not, I’m not going to do something you’re not comfortable with.”

Roman’s uneasiness visibly melted away. “I know,” he told Virgil. He leaned up on his elbows to give Virgil a little peck on the tip of his nose. “But I’m okay with this, I promise. I wouldn’t let Patton do it so often if I wasn’t. Not to brag, but…” He chuckled and flexed.

Virgil rolled his eyes with a grin and shoved Roman’s arm away. Roman laughed again.

Virgil’s smile softened as he looked down at Roman and he leaned down to kiss his cheek. “Let me know if you need me to stop? Or I cross a boundary?”

Roman nodded. “Just in case the squeezing is a little hard to maneuver, it seems like it was for you, let’s go with words instead. Red for stop, yellow for break? Like a traffic light.”

Virgil nodded. “Sounds good.”

He hesitated another moment before fully sitting up and throwing one of his legs over Roman, straddling him much like Roman had straddled Virgil the other day. He held out his arms, but didn’t start.

Roman raised an eyebrow.

“I… I’m not really sure where to start? I don’t think I’ll be as good at this as you.”

Roman smiled up at him gently. “Don’t worry, it’s not too hard.” He took Virgil’s hands and brought them up so his fingers rested gently on Roman’s neck. “Just start at the top and work down?”

Virgil shrugged and nodded, taking a deep breath. It was as good of an idea as any.

He carefully started wiggling his fingers against Roman’s neck and, unlike Virgil’s attempts to hold back, Roman immediately started giggling and squirming around.

Virgil’s hesitant expression morphed back into a smirk.

“That was easier than I thought,” Virgil said, spidering his fingers up to Roman’s ears and back down again.

Roman squealed and shook his head to try and dislodge Virgil from his ears. “Don’t tease!” He called through his giggles.

Virgil let out one of his own rare laughs, shifting his fingers back up to Roman’s ears and staying there to hear more of those squeals.

“I wasn’t even trying to tease,” he said. “But now that you mention it…”

“No!” Roman practically shrieked.

“No what?” Virgil grinned. “Teasing or tickling?”

“Both!”

Virgil hummed. “Too bad, we’ve just started. We can’t stop now!” Contrary to his words, Virgil did pause, staring at where Roman’s arms had glued themselves to his sides.

Roman panted, residual giggles still spilling from his lips. He looked up at Virgil with as much of a pout as he could muster with the involuntary smile still on his face. “Why are we stopping?”

Virgil smirked at the words, but it was honestly reassuring to know he wasn’t the only one into this. 

“I thought we could play a game. See, I can’t really work from the top down if you keep hiding the places I need to get to. So, tough guy, we’re gonna see how long you can keep those arms up for me.”

“Oh no,” Roman whined, drawing out the last word with another chuckle. “And _you_ said you weren’t good at this!”

Virgil smiled and scratched at his arm. “I’m winging it so hard.”

Roman slowly lifted his arms up and gripped the bars of his headboard. “Well, you’re doing great.”

Vigil started slowly spidering his fingers down Roman’s biceps and almost laughed when his arms immediately jerked. “Thanks,” he grinned.

He touched down in Roman’s armpits and almost fell when Roman pulled so hard that he moved them both further up the bed.

That time, Virgil did laugh. He laughed so hard that he had to stop tickling and leaned over to rest his forehead against Roman’s chest.

“Yeah, you keep laughing it up, Emo Nightmare,” Roman said, though he ran a hand gently through Virgil’s hair to show he meant nothing by the words. “I’ll give you something to laugh about.”

Roman shoved his own hands up into Virgil’s underarms, causing him to sit up and start squirming away.

“Wait, no!” Virgil cackled, almost toppling off of Roman’s lap. “It’s supposed to be my turn!”

After drawing a few more laughs out of Virgil, Roman relented. “Alright, alright.”

“Arms back up,” Virgil said, trying to swallow down his own residual giggles.

Roman gave him a nervous smile, gripping the headboard once more.

Virgil didn’t even bother with buildup again, digging his fingers directly into the hollows of Roman’s armpits.

“Ah, no!” Roman yelled, and his arms came crashing down as he cackled.

“Man,” Virgil said. “The great Roman Prince, unable to stand a little tickling?” He mock-gasped. “What would the cheerleaders think?”

“Shut up!”

“You’re right, they would probably be into it and never leave you alone. Good thing you’re all mine, then!”

“Virgil, please!”

“Please what? Please… switch spots?” Virgil sighed. “I _suppose_ , if I _must_.”

He skittered his fingers up and down Roman’s ribs a few times before squeezing the fleshy parts of his sides, and continued to switch back and forth between the two.

“So,” Virgil started conversationally, like he wasn’t systematically destroying Roman beneath his fingers, “on a scale from one to ten, how am I doing? I get it if it’s a little low, I am pretty new at this, haven’t done it in a while, but you seem somewhat entertained, at the very least.”

Roman was laughing too hard at the conflicting and switching situations that he couldn’t answer, so Virgil lightened up a bit. He started gently wiggling his fingers around Roman’s stomach, instead.

“How did you do that,” Roman panted through his giggles. “I didn’t even think I was that ticklish in those places.

Virgil shrugged. “Guess I’m just magic.”

“Guess, _sO_ \--!” Roman’s words turned into a loud laugh as Virgil decided his break was over and slipped his hands under Roman’s shirt to dig into his stomach.

He stayed there for a few minutes, drawing out all the reactions he could. Roman’s frantic squirming caused him to have to tighten his thighs around Roman’s body to not fall off.

That didn’t seem to do him much good when he moved further down, grabbing Roman’s hips where his jeans had ridden down from his squirming and squeezing.

Roman made some sound between a scream and a laugh, bucking so hard that he not only threw Virgil off his legs, but off the bed entirely. He stayed on the ground and laughed for a few moments. He seemed to be doing that a lot more often, recently.

“Fuck,” Roman giggled up on the bed. “That was so bad, what the hell?”

Virgil popped his head over the side of the bed, a new wave of laughter bubbling up.

“I have never been tickled there in my _life_ , how is that my worst spot, holy shit that tickled so much.”

Virgil grinned, climbing back up onto the bed and settling himself back on top of Roman’s legs when he straightened back out. 

“What did you think it was before?” He asked, resting his hands on Roman’s hips and chuckling when Roman jumped.

“My armpits,” Roman muttered, rubbing the back of his neck and leaving his arm there to cushion his head.

Virgil cocked his head with that same predatory smirk, leaning forward. “So, are we done, or…”

Roman chuckled and brought his free hand up to scratch at Virgil’s scalp. “Tell you what, you can have a two minute finale, but I think I’m too tired for you to go after the lower half.”

Virgil hummed as Roman scratched his scalp and played with his hair, closing his eyes in bliss. “I guess I’ll just have to get it later.”

Roman chuckled. “You know, I still have to get your’s, too. Those feet look pretty ticklish to me.”

Virgil bit his lip and grinned nervously, leaning forward when Roman tilted his head up, a silent request for a kiss.

He placed his lips against Roman’s and closed his eyes, but they shot wide open again when Roman rolled them over so he was on top and started squeezing Virgil’s own hips.

Virgil broke the kiss and squealed, grabbing on to Roman’s biceps.

“Wait,” Virgil laughed out, “what about my finale?”

Roman grinned. “Whoops! Guess it’s mine now.”

 _That’s what you think_ , Virgil thought, fighting past the weakness in his muscles that the tickling brought on to squeeze his hands between their bodies and latch back on to Roman’s hips.

Roman cried out in laughter and stopped tickling Virgil, losing his strength and balance and collapsing onto Virgil.

Virgil kept going, watching as Roman’s face lit up with laughter and his blush. Despite how much he’d been squirming earlier, Roman went completely limp as he cackled and laughed and wheezed.

Virgil almost didn’t notice the tears of laughter start trailing down Roman’s face. When he did, he started getting a little anxious that he’d gone too far. He told himself that Roman hadn’t called out either of his words, that Roman would let him know when he’d had enough.

And sure enough, he did.

A minute or two after the tears started, a series of wailed noises that sounded suspiciously like “red” intermingled with Roman’s hysterical laughter.

Virgil stopped immediately.

If possible, Roman went even more limp on top of him.

“You okay?” Virgil asked anxiously.

Roman let out another laugh, unrelated to tickling. “Yeah. Great, actually. Thanks.”

Taking a page out of Roman’s book, Virgil started running his fingers through Roman’s hair and against his scalp to calm down.

“For the record,” Roman said, sliding off him and cuddling up to his side, throwing one of his legs over Virgil’s, “you are way better at that than you’re giving yourself credit for.”

Virgil blushed, suddenly easily embarrassed again now that he didn’t have Roman writhing under his fingers.

“You, um… Do you need anything?” Virgil asked, trying not to fidget.

“Yeah, actually, could you hand me that water bottle on the nightstand?” Roman sat up and practically chugged the whole bottle when Virgil passed it to him.

Roman then curled up on Virgil just like before, giving Virgil his hand as an invitation to fidget with it. He took it, bending Roman’s wrist gently back and forth a few times before moving to bend his knuckles one by one, then repeating the whole process over again.

“Should we, like, talk about this at some point?” Virgil asked nervously.

Roman tilted his head up to look at him. “Talk about what?”

“The, uh, the tickling thing?”

Roman hummed. “Maybe. Probably. Just to make sure we’re both on the same page, we’re both happy and comfortable with whatever’s going on. But we don’t have to right now. I kinda want a nap,” he finished with a chuckle.

“Okay,” Virgil said, finally relaxing again.

“I love you,” Roman said quietly, his voice uncharacteristically nervous.

Virgil’s eyes went wide and his breath caught in his throat. Roman took his reaction the wrong way and immediately started backtracking.

“Sorry, that was kind of sudden, you don’t have to say it back, I--”

Virgil cut him off with another kiss. “I love you too,” he whispered against Roman’s lips when they pulled apart.

Roman broke out in a huge grin. He kissed Virgil once more before cuddling back up against him.

“First, nap,” he said. “Then, we’ll break out some of that non-caffeinated tea I have hiding in the cupboards just for you and we can talk about this, okay?”

Virgil hummed and smiled, content to curl up with his boyfriend for now, enjoying this moment where he could be completely at ease.

And how grateful he was to Roman for bringing laughter back into his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Once again, I have not written tickle fics before the past couple days, so please be gentle if it's not great lol. Also, I once again did not edit this for fear of talking myself out of posting.


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